2. How much can I back up with Carbonite Personal plans?

With Carbonite Personal plans, there's no limit on your backup storage space. You get as much space as you need - whether it's 1GB, 100 GB or more. Our Basic plan allows you to back up all the user-generated files on your internal hard drive. Additionally, our Plus and Prime plans allow you to also include files from an external hard drive in your backup.

3. How much does Personal backup cost?

Basic - $59.99 / year per computer
All the essentials. Automatic online backup for your photos, music, documents and more.

Plus - $99.99 / year per computer
A complete backup solution. Automatic online backup of your computer and external hard drive – plus a local backup of your operating system and software programs.

Prime - $149.99 / year per computer
The top of the line. With automatic video backup and the option to have a copy of your backup shipped to you anywhere in the United States, this is our most comprehensive solution for protecting home office and family computers.

Subscribe for longer and save. Multi-year pricing provides a 5% discount for 2 years, and a 10% discount for 3 years for all Personal plans.

4. Is Carbonite secure?

Yes. Our business and reputation depend on keeping your data safely backed up. We encrypt your files before they leave your computer and encrypt them again during transit to one of our data centers using the same security technology used in online banking and e-commerce transactions. Your files remain encrypted on our servers, which are housed in state-of-the-art data centers that are guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Find out more about what we do to keep your data safe.

5. How do I get my files back?

Carbonite makes it really easy to restore your files when you need them. Whether you need a single file or all your files, the Carbonite restore manager will guide you through the process. Personal Prime customers also get the added benefit of having a copy of their backed up files shipped to them anywhere in the United States with our Courier Recovery service. Learn more about restoring your files.

7. Can I use Carbonite to back up my external hard drive?

If you subscribe to Plus or Prime, you can include one external hard drive in your online backup. Carbonite will scan your external hard drive for files that are not already backed up online and will add those files to your backup.

8. What is Mirror Image backup?

Mirror Image backup adds an extra layer of protection by creating a copy or "mirror image" of your computer by backing it up to an external hard drive that you provide. Your Mirror Image backup includes your entire computer - not just the files and folders, but also your operating system and software programs, such as Microsoft Word. If your computer crashes and you need to get up and running again quickly, you can use your Mirror Image backup to restore your entire computer - operating system and all - to the way it was before the crash.

9. Can I use Carbonite to free up space on my hard drive?

No. Carbonite is online backup – not online storage. It is meant to be a backup of the files that are on your computer – not a place to store files in order to free up space on your hard drive. If you remove any file from your hard drive, we wait 30 days for you to recover it, and then we delete that file from our servers, too.

10. How does Carbonite compare to other online backup services?

There are a lot of companies that offer online backup, but Carbonite is unique for several reasons:

Backup is the only thing we do – our only business.
We're 100% focused on backing up and safeguarding your files and making sure that recovering those files is simple and hassle-free. We're not a large corporation that decided to offer backup as another service - we're a company that was formed specifically to make cloud backup simple and available to everyone.

If you want to learn more about Carbonite’s history, visit our About Us section.

We make restoring your backed up files fast – and foolproof.
Since you back up your files so that you can restore them when you need them the most, we've focused on making our restore process the easiest in the industry. You can begin restoring files instantly - right from your desktop or from Carbonite.com. You don't need to wait for us to prepare your backed up files - they're always available and waiting to be recovered. Our automated Restore Manager feature walks you through the process. And if you ever need to shut down your computer or lose your Internet connection during a restore, Carbonite will pick up right where it left off once you're reconnected to the Internet.

We give you easy access to your backed up files – anytime, anywhere.
Once your files are backed up by Carbonite, you’ll be able to securely access them from any computer by logging in to your account. In addition, you can download one of our free mobile apps to access your files on-the-go, or sync files across all your devices.

We put no limits on your backup storage space.
With all three Personal plans, you don't need to worry about choosing which of your files are important enough to back up and which you'll have to leave to chance; these plans give you as much space as you need for your backup.

We’re there when you need us.
Carbonite is designed to be simple and hassle-free, but if you ever have questions, or need customer support, we're here to help. We offer free support via phone, email and live chat. Our support channels are available to all our customers - even if you're in a free trial - and all our support representatives are located in the United States.

Adding files or folders to your backup.

Windows users:

To add any file or folder to your backup, simply right-click on the folder or file and select 'Back this up' from the Carbonite menu. You can remove files from your backup the same way. Simply right-click on a file and select 'Don't back this up' from the Carbonite menu.

Mac users:

To add or remove any file from your backup, open the Carbonite Preference Pane. Under the 'Backup' tab, select 'Manually Manage My Backup'. Locate the file or folder you want to back up and click 'Back this up.' If there’s a file that you don't want to be backed up, simply locate that file and select 'Do not back this up.'